Just started back up again after a 3-4 year hiatus from the game and have been focusing on BST because, well, I can't get a PT for my 63 PLD for the life of me and there are only so many 2 hour waits without a peep a man can take before he just gives up. Anywho, I had been running around Qufim doing the rape, pillage, burn thing on all of the EPs there scoring 100+ XP a critter on my run from 33 to 37 in about 4-5 hours play time. Needless to say, I was pretty fired up about the hike in XP on the lower difficulty mobs because I remember the serious grindage of BST back in the day where a T fight with a DC/EM got you 120 XP and a Hugh Jass bunch of downtime (I actually remember even earlier where a surviving pet cost you -20% XP).

I was looking at the Hunting Grounds 2.0 thread and decided to make a run for Altepa zones and see how I did there. So far all I've seen is that I'm gaining XP far slower, taking far bigger risks, doing far longer fights, and have about five times the downtime once I get done with a battle or two (if I don't have to run for my life in mid battle on the second one for...*drum roll* tons of downtime). I was using a single Dia per fight with a leach in Qufim that tanked the whole fight just dandy and now I'm taking 75% of the love during a battle unless I let my pet get beat darn near to death before I wade in with a high chance of it croaking on me with 1/3 of a T fight to go.

Is it just me or has it simply become too XP profitable with easier mobs to bother at all with the old method at all?

I recommend doing GoV on EM mobs at most, you can get better xp with lower mobs but if you want to skill up as long as you have signet for the def/evasion bonus just make sure you don't fight above EM, although you can skill to cap on DC now as well.

Fastest xp is probably getting into an abyssea party as a leech, but you need many hours for that to be worth it, GoV is better in short bursts.

waste of time is subjective. I'd do whatever you enjoy more. If you actually want to gain levels fairly quickly - stick to easier mobs and then just do skill ups in a focused way later (I skilled up enough to hit crap in abyssea when I was about the right level, then got my axe capped by doing parties for merits after level cap)

If it is more fun to you to do it the old school way, then do that.

As for your PLD - what you need to do is go down to the basement of Bost. Oublette, flag up and shout "book burn party, can I have it?" - as long as the alliance that is almost always down there isn't full - you will get a spot. Then you'll get 100K exp an hour or so if the party is any good.

People almost never bother seeking players to fill the spots in their book burn alliances (I do but I am weird/want better exp) - so you could sit in Jueno with your flag up forever at that level and no one will look twice at you. Once you hit about 75-80 you will probably be able to get into an abyssea exp alliance but without atma you won't be much of an asset.

Edited, May 31st 2012 1:34pm by Olorinus

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lolgaxe wrote:

When it comes to sitting around not doing anything for long periods of time, only being active for short windows, and marginal changes and sidegrades I'd say FFXI players were the perfect choice for politicians.

Alliance book burning is the fastest way you will get xp, however it gets super boring.

However, you can still up your game alot killing T's as a solo bst. Chain killing T's is faster in some places for solo/duo/trio but not always. you can still do faster xp by spamming ep~dc's w/ pages in some zones and level ranges as well. It depends on how you want to play.

Choosing different pages has a different 'training regime' you get xp each time you kill the mobs in the list.

FoV is not new. GoV is, FoV 2.0 and has some nice upgraded features. Basically as long as you get any xp for the kill, you get the xp bonus for killing the group.

So alliances form up, kill everying on the page. you might hav ea level 99 player killing 9 leeches in bostonieux in a couple minutes and you can get up to 4.1k xp for each timethe page is completed. They are set to auto-repeat so you dont' need to go back to book so how long does it take to kill 9 leeches who are around level 64 when you have 18 ppl? I think there are around 27 leeches in that run in the zone.. not sure exactly how many. but I do you know break 100k xp /hour.

Even MORE in-depth GoV explanation: Grounds of Valor (find the link in the post above)

Starts in Gusgen Mines doing Skeletons (Page 1, set to repeat). Usually there's a decent amount of people in there. I level up my job to 15 before I go in for melee, you can go in earlier if you're a healer, BST was actually pretty fun to go in with. Couldn't call pet, but still decent damage with an Axe. Eventually you can Charm one of the Funguars and they'll make your dps skyrocket and skeles will die even faster because they're blunt dmg and no one cares about the xp from individual skeles, just from the pages.

Note on that: Page 1 says kill 6 skeles, then you get a reward and it restarts automatically. The reward builds each time to a capped amount of xp and gil per page. You also get a special little bonus trait each time a page is completed.

I stay there until I hit 36 or so for most melee, less if you're a healer/bard/smn/leecher, and then head to Cralwer's Nest. Page 1 again. Bees and Crawlers. Groups will do 3 of one mob type, then 3 of another, repeat, moving down the tunnel on the top floor, then heading all the way back to the entrance to start over. A lot more roaming, but BSTs are awesome here too, especially if you have a pet with piercing dmg moves.

This is as far as I've gotten. I've just got like 7 jobs to 50, then I start a new job. Eventually I'll take PUP all the way up. Not sure where to go after that. I think someone said Garliage.

I'm leveling DNC as my SJ for BST and am in the middle of the Gusgen run of things at level 28. The XP is pretty fast with the pages but it gets really **** boring punking down EP Skeletons ad nauseum without any challenge at all. I can honestly say that I miss the old skool dancing on the knife's edge of brawling IT++ with a group of six merry marauders where hooking an extra mob on the backswing of a pull literally is the difference between victory (and a stunning cap of 200-240XP, IIRC) and a potential TPK without some mad skillz.

Less hassles with getting slapped down, but one **** of a lot more exciting...

I'm leveling DNC as my SJ for BST and am in the middle of the Gusgen run of things at level 28. The XP is pretty fast with the pages but it gets really **** boring punking down EP Skeletons ad nauseum without any challenge at all. I can honestly say that I miss the old skool dancing on the knife's edge of brawling IT++ with a group of six merry marauders where hooking an extra mob on the backswing of a pull literally is the difference between victory (and a stunning cap of 200-240XP, IIRC) and a potential TPK without some mad skillz.

Less hassles with getting slapped down, but one **** of a lot more exciting...

Nothing is stopping you from soloing more challenging mobs for slower exp.

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Lyonheart, like Eorzia, will be reborn in FFXIV!

FFXI veteran (Lyonheart and Lakiskline of Lakshmi) 1/467 on signed HQ Weskit!!!